I have officially decided that I'm a wintertime homebody. I do not love packing my kids up in the car and dragging them around in the name of keeping busy. When we are out I generally try to get home as quickly as we can- at least when we're running errands. We have plenty of fun outings, but from day to day I just like to be home! And, thankfully, the kids usually feel the same way. They rarely ask to leave the house, and most days of the week you will find us snuggled up and playing in our house, waiting out the winter and having fun "doing nothing".
I've heard so many complaints lately about how long and miserable this winter has been. I think everyone has forgotten last year! We aren't freezing, the sun comes out regularly, and inside our house is the place to be. Especially on days when the weather feels like this-
We've come up with one thousand and one ways to keep busy inside. While Jason was gone last month the kids wanted to go to IHOP for dinner. I don't know why they love that place so much, but I convinced them that we could create our own IHOP at home. Leah insisted on being the server, creating menus for everyone and serving up their orders. I promised them chocolate chip pancakes, orange juice and chocolate milk, and two slices of bacon each.
And they all loved it!
Last weekend we had a "family camp-in". We pitched the tent in the living room, roasted hot dogs and smores and Starbursts, played a bunch of card games and games that Leah taught us and sang silly songs and slept under the "stars".
It was a magical night.
Adam was the only one who actually slept the entire night in the tent, and he won a prize of glow-in-the-dark stars to stick above his bed. The girls got some as runner-up prizes as well. Poor Jason just got a stiff neck for trying to sleep on the floor with Adam.
Staying inside for the winter means building puppy palaces-
Or having friends over and getting silly.
One day we made heart shaped pretzels- anything to heat up the oven!
When I spend more time at home I can take piles of veggies like this-
and turn them into a delicious meal like this. I could eat soup every day of the winter.
We're surviving the winter by playing with Oobleck, corn, K'nex, Legos, Play-doh, craft supplies, puzzles, board games, hide-and-seek, lacing beads, magnets, dress-ups and more.
When we're "stuck" in the house there is always plenty of time for snuggling when someone's not feeling good.
Unfortunately in the winter means there is more sickness going around than I ever prefer, although the occasional day of stillness is kind of nice.
Being "trapped" indoors means there is plenty of time to catch up on sleep!
And we do go out occasionally. Trips to school, preschool, violin lessons, Activity Days, gymnastics and youth activities keep us plenty busy all week long. There is a bouncing place here, we like getting together with friends, and one day last week when Jason was working from home I jumped at the chance to send Adam to Lunch Bunch and to have lunch with Leah at school.
And we had an extra visitor with us!
Leah loved showing Emma around the place, and Emma loved the pink milk in the cafeteria!
Our whole family had tickets to see Curious George at ISU this week, but due to sickness, it turned into a one-on-one date for Mommy and Emma! She was a fantastic audience member, and I loved the chance to listen to her talk and share a fun theater experience with her.
We'll definitely be glad when spring is here. For the most part, though, we are enjoying our "long winter's nap" just the way it is.
In the midst of all of our Christmas, baptism, family and Puerto Rico fun, we celebrated the New Year!
Jason had left for work by this point, but the kids and I had a fabulous time celebrating with family. We did a huge puzzle, ate fondue and played a fun hourly pop the balloon game. The funniest part of the whole night was when Emma won five dollars from Grandma's "Let's Make A Deal" game. She could have cared less, and the bigger cousins were all freaking out at her awesome prize. It was hilarious.
This little tricker slept all through the celebrations, then decided around 1:15 that he was ready to join the fun. Right when I was ready for bed!
We don't know everything that 2015 will hold- it's actually shaping up to be a rather quiet year for us since we started it out with such a bang- but we are excited to see what the year will bring! Happy 2015... in March!
It goes without saying that there was no (easy) way that we could have gone on such an amazing trip without the help of my parents. The kids had so much fun at "Grandma Camp" and they are still asking to go back just about every day.
We missed the kids so much while we were in Puerto Rico (although we commented often about how nice it was to not have to worry about all the things that traveling with kids involves). But it was easy to keep up-to-date on how the kids were doing with the texts highlighting the fun they were having.
And boy did they have fun! At the aquarium, on shopping dates with Grandma, crafting at home, and playing with cousins, I hardly think they knew we were even gone.
They're all ready to go back again. Especially Emma, who would give just about anything to torture hug Roxy just one more time. We don't know when we'll be headed West again, but we sure did love every minute of our trip there!
The third day of our trip was Bucket List day. We were going ziplining through a rainforest!
We walked through the brightly colored neighborhood for breakfast at Kasalta then checked out of our beautiful little boutique hotel and headed back up into the mountains. This time we were alone- transported in a black passenger van by a man who was clearly part of the ziplining operation. He briefed us on the way up about the proper way to zip down the runs without burning our hands or snapping our muscles, and I was grateful for everything he told us because once we got up there I realized that I was going to have a hard time understanding much of anything else. No one spoke English! Well, they did but not in the you're-clearly-a-tourist-so-I'm-going-to-cut-you-a-break-and-speak-your-language way that everyone else we had met on the entire island so far did. And I apparently crack jokes when I'm nervous- and I was getting nervous!- and instead of laughing politely the older employees just looked at Jason for a translation, which resulted in him having to explain that. no, I didn't really think we were going to go crashing down the mountain... ha, ha, ha... it was a little rough.
I did notice though, that the longer we were on the island the more comfortable I felt listening to people speak Spanish and even responding where I could. In America (at least where we live) there is very much an attitude of "this is my country, speak my language", but here, immersed in the beautiful Spanish culture and language, I wanted to hear it and understand it and be a part of it. That was something I've never experienced before, but I loved it. It helped me understand a bit more the great love that Jason developed for the people of Bolivia while he spent two years there serving them.
After they hooked us into our harnesses and gave us our second rundown on what to do and not do, we took a tram ride up the mountainside. It was a gorgeous view, and we had more chances to make slightly awkward small talk with other members of our group. This time all of the people with us were locals, so there was more Spanish speaking all around, and I finally got to the point where I just laughed when Jason laughed. Once we were all zipping down the mountain it was easy to understand that we were all saying and thinking the same thing- this is amazing fun! We stopped at an aviary and saw all of the beautiful birds that I was hoping we would have seen in El Yunque the day before.
We were able to get right up next to the birds, which freaked me out a little bit, but I couldn't resist taking pictures with all of them. I especially loved seeing them all paired up. The deep indigo ones at the bottom were my favorite. Jason had to drag me out of the aviary to catch up with the rest of our group.
After traversing through some dense greenery we found our way to the first run. The crew did everything for us- hooking us into the ziplines and unhooking us again on the other side of the run- our only job was to push off and keep ourselves facing straight ahead, controlling our speed as desired.
A good run included facing forward the whole way down, a beginner's run might include a bit of spinning around (you have to keep one hand securely grasping the harness while the other arm is stretched straight back on the line, making an "ok" sign to keep you from spinning around, and if you grasp that hand too tight you'll rip your arm right out of it's socket. I know, and it hurts!), and a fail of a run includes stopping before the end of the line and having to pull yourself hand-over-hand to the other platform. Thankfully that didn't happen to either of us.
Once the initial run was behind us, we were ready to conquer the mountain! Jason had no problem getting the right amount of speed and control on every run, and I did just about as good. It's really quite a simple activity, and once you get going there is barely enough time to register that you're flying over the rain forest! in Puerto Rico! in January! before you've made it to the other side and are unhooking and moving on to the next run.
It was awesome. We did 7 runs and a rapelling station, and by the end we were pros!
In the middle of it all it started raining.
And I mean raining. They don't call it a rain forest for nothing.
And, like the kayaking storm from the night before, all we could do was stand there and laugh and enjoy it.
And so we kept ziplining down, only now we were really in a rain forest. It was an awesome experience, one that made me really glad that I have a bucket list at all. It's always an amazing and surreal time when we can check something off the list!
Once we were back down the mountain we headed back into town. This time we were headed to La Concha, the hotel of choice for the second half of our trip. With spots to rest like this-
and restaurants like this-
we were really looking forward to the second half of our stay.
We were a bit shameless in telling our desk clerk that it was our 10-year anniversary, and with a few phone calls and smiles, she handed us the keys to our room, that had a view like this-
Oh, that blue water. The waves were super loud, and we had fun watching the surfers and body-boarders.
We were directly above La Pearla, the fancy shell-shaped restaurant that we promised the kids we would eat at.
But first we ordered room service and ate in our bed! I can still taste that rice...
Our plan for the first half of our trip was to pack in all of our excursions, and the second half of the trip was meant to be all about relaxing. And it was perfect.
We swam in the infinity pools and lounged on the beach and played in the ocean and napped on one of these-
We got caught in the rain every day. I gave up on doing my hair, because it was always wet from the rain or wet from the pool or wet from the ocean. And it was great.
We got dressed up and ate in one of the fanciest restaurants I've ever been in. The seafood was fresh and the service was flawless and the views were amazing.
We ate a lot of good food.
We went to bed when we wanted and we woke up when we wanted. Sometimes we lounged around for hours, other times we stayed out late. We had nowhere to be and nothing that we had to do, and it was fantastic.
We wandered up and down the beach and across the bridges and over the huge pieces of driftwood and in and out of the waves as they crashed onto the shore. We wanted to go stand-up paddle boarding, but we didn't want to fight the huge waves and strong winds. So we watched other boarders struggle instead, and promised each other that we would do it back home (stand-up paddle boarding is one of the few Puerto Rican adventures we could actually recreate in Iowa).
We talked. And laughed. And talked and talked and talked some more. It was so nice to be able to really talk- to share complete sentences and whole ideas and thoughts and feelings and hopes and goals and concerns. We talked about how far we've come together, and how exciting the life that lies ahead will be. The entire trip felt like a honeymoon, only a thousand times more exciting and more deserved and a true break from real life (whereas a honeymoon is more the celebration of embarking on a new life together). This was a true, relaxing, wonderful break from reality. And it was glorious.
And then, just as I remember feeling at the end of our honeymoon, we decided that this was an amazing vacation, but that an even more wonderful reality was waiting for us back home. So we packed up and said good-bye (until next time!) to this wonderful island, and we headed back home.
It was the best way possible to celebrate our first ten (and a half!) years together.
